Finding Justus

by Bretz, Amanda

  “Oh, I’m sorry!” Krystal exclaimed when she saw movement under the covers.

  “It’s okay, Krystal. I’m alone. You can uncover your eyes.”

  “What? Where’s Miguel, I didn’t even expect you to be in here. I thought you two would be…busy for the rest of the night, in his cabin!”

  “Yeah, well…I’m kinda sick so…”

  “Yeah, you’re sick all right,” Krystal mumbled.

  “What do you mean by that? Just because I didn’t want to sleep with Miguel, there’s something ‘wrong’ with me? If you think he’s so great, you know where his cabin is, you go sleep with him.”

  “No, Justus, you know I don’t want that. I’m sorry, I guess I’m a little let down. I know this may sound as if I’m trying to live vicariously through you, but I was really excited over the fact that you and Miguel were going to sleep together.”

  You and me both, Justus thought. If only she hadn’t gotten cold feet on the beach! She could go to his cabin, tell him she took his advice, and had taken some medicine and was hoping to…what? She didn’t know what she should tell him. She was hoping to continue what happened earlier in the day at the waterfall?

  She was tempted to say to hell with it, she’d be sad when she got home, but at least she’d have a few memorable last days with Miguel. Yet she knew it had been utterly foolish to think she could dismiss her feelings and get physical with him when she had looked into his eyes on the beach. Maybe she should’ve just gone to his cabin.

  Ugh! Why am I always second guessing myself? Justus thought as she punched her pillow in frustration. To make matters worse, the more she thought about the attention and concern he had shown for her, she felt lousy lying to him.

  She supposed she needed to start with the truth, no more lies. She gnawed on her lip, and glanced at the clock on the nightstand. Midnight. Almost three hours had passed since she’d last talked to Miguel, he was probably asleep.

  There was no sense in waking him up, she reasoned. He’d been so concerned for her. He’d stayed in the cabin with her for a while making sure she was okay. After he had finally left, someone had hand delivered her every type of stomach remedy known to man, which made her feel awful for her deceit.

  ***

  Justus rolled over and looked at the clock. It was just after one. She knew Miguel had to be asleep now, but she didn’t care. She had to see him. She needed to be with him. Getting out of bed quietly, careful not to wake Krystal, Justus quickly pulled on the shorts and shirt she’d had on earlier and slipped out the door, closing it with an almost inaudible click.

  When she arrived outside Miguel’s door she knocked tentatively, at first. After she’d received no response, she knocked harder and longer. Maybe he was just a heavy sleeper, she reasoned. As she continued to pound on his door, however, she realized no one could sleep that heavily. A few cabin doors opened and the occupants were giving Justus dirty looks and she was sure, cursing her under their breaths. She stopped knocking when a new idea came upon her. Miguel wasn’t even in his cabin, he couldn’t be. She had seen the dimensions of his room, and she felt pretty sure in those cramped quarters there was no way anyone could escape the noise caused by the beating she was giving his door. With a feeling of despair she turned and headed back toward her own cabin.

  ***

  “Una mas,” Miguel said to the bartender, who was Anglo, but knew Miguel wanted another drink. He was restless, and no matter what he did, he couldn’t get his mind off of Justus. After he’d left her cabin he’d went to the fitness center to work off some of his excess energy. But after he returned to his cabin and showered, he still wasn’t ready for bed, so he took a walk around the deck, hoping to clear his head.

  Instead, it only made him think of Justus, which had brought him to the bar. Now, as he sat nursing a beer he didn’t even want, he glanced around the bar and immediately wished he hadn’t. It was too late, he’d been spotted.

  “Miguel!”

  Upon hearing her fake-sounding, high-pitched voice he cringed, but plastered a semblance of a smile on his face.

  “Tammy.”

  She either didn’t notice his apparent dread, or pretended not to. She hopped on the bar stool next to him, brushing her large breasts against him in the process. She flashed the bartender a broad, cheesy grin.

  “Whiskey sour, please. So, what brings you here at this hour? Are we lonely tonight?” She asked in her babyish tone and slipped her hand onto his knee.

  Miguel crossed his legs in an effort to keep her from touching him and said, “No, not at all. I’m…”

  “Oh, you don’t have to lie to me, I know what it’s like to be lonely, and I know a great cure for it,” she said as she slipped her hand into his pants pocket and started rubbing his thigh.

  He tensed up and gripped his beer so tightly his fingers turned white. How he wished he could tell this slut he wasn’t interested and never would be, so she could stop trying to give him ‘signals’ and move on to her next victim. Well, he could tell her, just not in so many words. He stood abruptly, causing Tammy’s hand to be jerked out of his pocket. She reeled on her barstool and looked at him slack-jawed. Miguel had never seen someone looking so pitiful or so surprised before. He felt certain he was about to be the first man to ever tell Tammy no.

  “I’m not lonely. You didn’t let me finish, I’m waiting here for someone, but I’ve decided to go find her a little earlier than planned,” Miguel said, feeling like he’d satisfactorily put Tammy in her place. He turned from her and walked out of the bar.

  He walked back to his cabin, locked the door and began to undress. When he was down to nothing, he slid beneath the covers. He tried to fall asleep, but he still couldn’t. After tossing and turning for several minutes he heard a knock at his door.

  Who in the world could be knocking on his door, at one o’clock in the morning? He started to get up and throw on his boxers, but then he realized who. It had to be Tammy.

  She was completely shameless, not only did she think he hadn’t met someone, she obviously thought there was no way she’d get turned down if she came to his door. Well, she had another thing coming. She could knock all night, but he still wouldn’t come to the door.

  ***

  Justus awoke early the next morning feeling despair despite the sun rays glistening on the ocean. She hadn’t slept much, instead she had gone from one bad dream to the next all night. She had dreamt of Miguel with another woman, Miguel hiding in his bed, laughing at her stupidity.

  She refused to believe he had been asleep. He had either been out somewhere or there ignoring her, or in someone else’s cabin. That was the most devastating of all possibilities. She had really hoped Miguel had been serious about her, even though she felt their separation would affect her more than it would him.

  Justus suddenly remembered one of her nightmares involved Miguel meeting her mother. The details were fuzzy, but she remembered the look of disdain on her mother’s face when she saw Miguel. Justus sat up in bed. The last thing she wanted to do was think about her family troubles, least of all her mother. She did enough of that back in St. Louis.

  She wondered about her mother a lot. About how she was doing, if she was making it okay now that she had lost her own mother and was alone. Although Justus thought often of her mother, she never called her mother because she never called Justus. And the reason neither of them called each other was because of their past.

  Her mother wasn’t a bad parent. She had raised her best she could as a single mother. Justus and her mother lived with her maternal grandparents in their large house in rural Ohio. Her grandparents, along with her mother, had raised her to be Christian, and to be respectful of elders and to have impeccable manners. In short they had raised her right. Justus had always been respectful and a good daughter until she turned eighteen.

  Then things changed, which caused Justus to rebel and move away from her mother and grandparents. Justus hadn’t been seen her family since the day she left.
She had heard through an old high school friend when both of her grandparents had died. She didn’t worry about her mother’s financial state. Her grandparents were wealthy and her mother, like Justus, was an only child.

  As Justus looked out to the morning sky, she allowed herself to remember that turbulent day when she left the only home she had ever known. She’d felt hatred for both her grandparents, and distrust and betrayal toward her mother. She had gathered together all her meager savings and bought a bus ticket. Justus led her mother to believe she was going to New York City, knowing full well she was really heading west. She had planned on getting as far west as she could. She wanted to be somewhere warm, like Texas, Nevada, or Arizona, near her father’s family.

  When she arrived at the bus station, she realized she could only afford to go as far west as St. Louis. She had only planned on staying there for a few months, just long enough to get a job, get ahead and get another bus ticket farther west. However, it turned out all the efficiency hotels had been more expensive than she’d thought and waitressing in a city was a lot harder than it had been at the diner in the small town she’d came from.

  After a hectic month and a half of being a waitress at a very busy Italian restaurant, she’d searched the classifieds looking for something better. She had thought she’d found it in an ad that read, “Be a professional beautician in just nine short months,” along with an address belonging to a beauty school. She smiled to herself now at what she had found at beauty school instead of a career. Her best friend. Krystal and Aunt Judy were the only family Justus had, but they were closer to her than any of her blood relatives had ever been.

  Justus cleared her mind and got back to the issue at hand, the one that was really bothering her, and the real reason she was thinking about her past with her mother. Miguel. She was thinking about telling him everything because she knew if she kept seeing him, even though it would only be for a short while, it was going to come up.

  It inevitably came up with every person she dated. It was only natural to talk about family. She knew she needed to tell Miguel for some reason, that somehow it would help her. She also knew she didn’t want to lie to him.

  Lying was too much like running away and she was tired of running. She didn’t have anything to hide anymore, and she shouldn’t be ashamed of what happened, but she was. With Miguel she felt different than she’d felt with others she’d dated. She felt like she was home. Safe and like she’d finally found something she didn’t even know she’d been looking for. That scared the hell out of her.

  She’d felt it the first time she’d spoke to Miguel, the first time she’d danced with him. That was why she’d tried so hard to be hateful to him, because in a lot of ways, she didn’t want to feel this way, she didn’t want it to feel so good. It was a scary decision, but she’d known the first time he kissed her she could tell him about her past and he would understand.

  It wouldn’t surprise Justus if Miguel tried to help her in every way he could. Justus had never told anyone about her past except Krystal and her aunt. Justus had never felt close enough or comfortable enough to tell Alex. She supposed if she had married him, she would have told him eventually.

  Justus fluffed her pillows and rolled onto her side. Maybe now that she’d mulled over such heavy subjects she could go back to sleep. She only hoped her resolve to be honest with Miguel didn’t diminish when she saw him later in the day.

  ***

  “Justus, hey Jus,” Krystal said as she gently shook her. “Wake up, sleepyhead. It’s almost lunchtime.”

  “Hmmm…Oh, I didn’t sleep very well last night,” she mumbled sleepily as she forced herself up to a sitting position. “Had nightmares, mostly about Miguel,” she added around a yawn.

  “Huh, that’s too bad. Especially since he’s already come by once this morning.” Justus stopped mid-stretch, her arms on either side of her head. “He did? What’d he say? What did he want?”

  Krystal pretended to be fixing her hair in the mirror above the dresser.

  “Well, he wanted to know if you were feeling any better,” she said as she cut her eyes at Justus in the mirror.

  “So, what did you say?”

  “I came as close to the truth as possible, I didn’t know how you were feeling, since you were still asleep. He said to let him know if he could do anything to help and he would probably stop back by to check on you this afternoon.”

  Justus groaned, flung herself on the bed and covered her head.

  “What’s wrong? Did Miguel suddenly turn into a toad? Or do you have cold feet?”

  “I don’t know what to think, Krystal. Last night I,” she stopped herself. Wait, did she want to tell Krystal about her dream about Miguel being with another woman? Did she want to tell her she suspected another guy could be playing her for a fool? Did she really want to cry on the shoulder of someone who rarely had this problem? Krystal had had her share of losers, but she’d never been played a fool in sequence. No, as much as she loved Krystal, and as much as she valued her advice, this was one time when she would not be seeking the counsel of her best friend.

  “Last night what?”

  “I don’t know. It’s hard for even me to understand, I don’t think I could explain it to anyone else. So,” she said as she sat up, “have you had lunch yet?”

  Krystal looked at her strange but said nothing impolite. “Nope, got any good ideas?”

  “How ‘bout room service and we can eat it on the verandah.”

  Shortly after they were on their patio, there was a knock at their door.

  “Wow! That was fast,” Justus said, as she headed for the door.

  She glanced out the peephole before opening the door. She let out an involuntary gasp. What she saw through the small, distorted opening was surprising.

  One of the crew members was holding a large basket with flowers and a teddy bear. She opened the door, and accepted the flowers, feeling guilty. Justus quickly shut the door behind her and looked at her gift before Krystal had time to discover it.

  The bouquet consisted of a dozen long-stemmed white roses. How did he know to send her favorite flower? Justus noticed that next to the flowers, on the handle of the basket sat a small teddy bear with one leg in a cast holding a balloon that read, ‘get well soon.’ With shaking hands she reached for the card attached to the flowers.

  Hope to see you back on your feet and dancing again soon.

  Miguel

  Justus stared at the card and the gift until they were blurry images in front of her. Tears filled her eyes, and confusion swept over her mind and heart. She didn’t know what she should do, what to believe, or most of all, how to feel.

  On one hand she wanted nothing more than to search this ship until she found Miguel and once she was there she would no longer fight the desires of her body. But then the fears returned.

  She had after all, trusted someone wholeheartedly once, and look at where that had gotten her. Justus had been lied to by someone whom she’d been closer to and had known longer than she had Miguel, so why should she trust him?

  What had he done to prove he was trustworthy? A little nagging voice in her head told her to look at what was in front of her. If that wasn’t proof of Miguel’s feelings for her, what was?

  “What’s the hold up, girl? Oh my God! Your favorite. See girl, he is perfect. Only the perfect guy knows to send the perfect gift.”

  Justus felt herself tense up and immediately go on the defensive. She hated that word, perfect. Alex had seemed perfect, that’s what all her girlfriends had told her. She had learned the hard way that guys that seem perfect can hurt you.

  “Yeah, I guess,” Justus said and then watched as Krystal’s eyes narrowed to slits.

  “So, Justus, you’re going to keep playing this game?”

  “What game?”

  “With Miguel, with his, his…feelings.”

  So Krystal was concerned about Miguel’s feelings, but not hers?

  “I don’t think I am,”
she said as she sat the basket down with a loud thump on the dresser. Justus kept her back to Krystal while she was talking to her, fingering a hairbrush on the dresser. “I mean, this is supposed to be just a simple, uncomplicated fling, right? Well, if that’s the case, and I can assure you it is, then I can’t be playing games with Miguel’s feelings, because technically, he shouldn’t have any!” Her voice had steadily risen with each word, until she was practically shouting. She turned to face Krystal and negligently tossed the brush onto the bed for emphasis.

  Krystal was quiet for a few moments before she spoke.

  “Justus look, I know that’s what I told you, but it seems like it’s become more than that at this point. You’ve both got feelings for each other, you know it, I know it, and I’m pretty sure Miguel knows it. There’s no point in you trying to deny it further.”

  Krystal paused for a moment as Justus walked to the bed. She picked up the hairbrush limply in one hand and sat down beside her friend. Justus looked at her with tears forming in her eyes.

  “You’re right. But Krys, I’m so scared. I’m so damned scared that whatever decision I make, my heart is going to be broken, no matter what. I’m scared that if I do succumb to these feelings and sleep with him, that somehow I will be…different or not what he expected, and then he’ll know my secret, you know, my family past. What if he thinks I’m stupid, if I tell him about it, I mean.”

  “Justus,” she said as she took the brush out of her hand and started brushing her hair, “he’s not going to know. Even if you decide to tell him the whole story, he’d realize it’s not your fault. I think he would understand and he could actually help you out somehow. But girl, regardless of your past, you shouldn’t do this, you shouldn’t hide from him. These are your last couple days together, they’re precious, so go enjoy them.

  “You need to see him tonight, this afternoon would be better. But you must see him tonight. I know he wants you. You, Justus. Not anything or anyone else. Look at that bouquet over there. Isn’t that proof enough?